


Wild Horses

by antivalentine



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Doomed Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivalentine/pseuds/antivalentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And did she love him?—what if she did not?<br/>Then home was still the home of happiest years;<br/>Nor thought was exiled to partake his lot,<br/>Nor heart lost courage through foreboding fears;<br/>Nor echo did against her secret plot,<br/>Nor music her betray to painful tears;<br/>Nor life become a dream, and sunshine dim,<br/>And riches poverty, because of him.</p><p>    (Jean Ingelow, 'The Star's Monument')</p><p> </p><p>Wherein Bess comes home from Europe, older but not necessarily wiser, at the same time as Dan comes back for Thanksgiving; and we learn, among other things, how he acquired that lock of hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home Again

The assembly hall of old Plumfield was draped in quantities of evergreens and silver ribbon, for it was time once more for the winter ball and the Laurences were back in Parnassus. While Laurie took the band of earnest student musicians through a last rehearsal, the scene upstairs was an equal cacophony of girls getting ready; running from room to room in search of pins or posies, squealing over trodden toes or lamenting a forgotten stain on a best frock.

'Queen Bess', as her father still called her, sat serene as ever in the midst of all this, unruffled by the feminine chaos around her. At nineteen, she was little changed from when we saw her last; a little paler and thinner from the long journey, perhaps, but otherwise as pleasing a picture of youth and beauty as ever met a fond mother's eye. She wore her golden hair in a neat, ladylike chignon, adorned only by an ivory comb. Her artist's eye eschewed the frills and flounces of current fashion, and, although her gown was from Paris, the cut was simple, chosen carefully to flatter rather than overwhelm her girlish figure.

This was the first time she would be appearing in company at home as a fully-fledged young lady, and though she was not visibly as excited as the college girls she still felt a small flutter of anticipation. Daisy, quite the young matron now, was engaged in failing to persuade Josie's hair to lie flat, while Josie herself vacillated between two competing corsages. It was pleasant to see her girl-cousins again; Meg had refused to let Josie accompany Bess to Europe, thinking her too young and headstrong to go so far away for so long, and won Josie's acquiescence by cunningly negotiating with Miss Cameron to promise a summer of studying in New York when she reached eighteen.

So Laurie had his way, and borrowed Teddy; for the Professor dearly wished his boy to see the Fatherland, and his mother could not in all conscience deny her son the adventures she had longed for as a girl. And, as Laurie had predicted, the cousins got on capitally; Ted stirred Bess up and prevented her 'getting airs', while her maidenly influence served to curb his more freakish impulses, such as the resolve to give up meat that came upon him in Hamburg, or his unrequited love for a waitress at their hotel in Nice.

Upon discovering that Dan had no evening suit, there being little call for such garments in the wilds of Montana, Josie rashly decided to procure her brother's second-best waistcoat and one of Nat's concert shirts, only to discover of course that neither came anywhere near to fitting him. An appeal to the student body had produced a pair of smart black trousers, only an inch or so too short, so that Josie was reluctantly obliged to concede to the wearing of boots.

'Why,' she said, stepping back to survey her handiwork, ' you're a regular Jesse James!' 

'I hope not,' said Dan soberly. Even now, any hint of being on the wrong side of the law unsettled him, and did not seem anything to joke about. Talking to Josie was safe enough, but he dreaded the prospect of being seen as fair game by the college girls. Dan had his doubts about going back to Plum for Thanksgiving, but Ted was back now, and he was curious to hear about the boy's travels. Not only that, but it would be remiss if he failed to pay his respects to the new Mrs Blake, having been unable to make it to Nat and Daisy's wedding. Things had been quieter lately between the Indians and the farmers, with harvest over and everyone hunkering down for another long western winter. At such times the old restlessness stirred in Dan, and he hungered for fresh faces and different horizons. Going home was the best remedy for that. Plumfield always steadied a fellow.

And then there was Bess.

Dan swung between wanting to see her again and fearing it. She was not for him, he'd always known that; it was enough that she was in the world and that he knew her. Most of the time he worked, and was cheerful, and wanted no more from life than the sun on his face and the wide plains stretching before him. But sometimes the dark mood would come upon him, bringing jealous thoughts of what suitors she must have flocking around her, and speculations on how she might have changed, being a lady now, who had seen something of the world. Then he felt that the hopeless fancy which had once kept him sane might now have the opposite effect, and sought to put it from him.

So when in the bustle around the entrance his keen eye caught a flash of golden hair, it was necessary for him to take a quick gulp of water (balls at Laurence College were temperate affairs, and, even if they had not been, Dan had seen too much damage wrought by alcohol elsewhere to touch it now), and nerve himself to face her. If she had altered, that would be hard to bear. If she had not... that could well be harder.

As Bess scanned the room her girlish heart quickened; for Europe, absence and the occasional novel had not failed to instill in her a handful of romantic fancies. Her last goodbye to Dan played much upon her mind, it being the first time anyone had looked at her quite like that, or spoken so. Since then, of course, several young men had tried, more or less ineptly, to flirt with her, which was flattering enough in its way; but compared to Dan's unrehearsed expression of raw emotion, it all seemed rather shallow. She still didn't know exactly what it signified, only that it surely signified something; and, I regret to say, Ted's mysterious hints about Dan's past only served to fascinate her more.

But with Mamma's watchful eye upon her, all she could was sit stupidly at the side of the hall, watching her dance card fill up with pleasant, unremarkable young men, and attempt to telegraph with her eyes her wish that he might approach her. All in vain. Dan seemed absorbed in regaling a knot of fellows with tales of the West, and the animated way in which he told his stories made Bess long to be a part of their group. For her part, she was as polite and charming as she always was, and nobody noticed anything amiss; but a careful observer might have seen that she had sadly deranged her fan, by picking at the lace until the edges frayed.

When the dancing commenced, Bess got up to do her duty, and enjoyed it almost in spite of herself, for she was naturally graceful and danced well. More than once, as some stuttering student nearly trod on her foot, or a dashing upperclassman whirled her around at a speed entirely out of pace with the music, she noticed Dan looking at her with an expression in his dark eyes that she couldn't quite read, though he broke into a ready smile when she caught his gaze. For all Bess's innocence, she had a woman's instincts, and something in that expression made her apt to trip over her train, or momentarily forget the next step.

After an hour or so, Bess sank into a chair beside her mother and aunts looking so fatigued that Amy pressed an anxious hand to her temple and murmured 'Bess, darling, are you well? I knew that dreadful young Mr Parker was going too fast...'

'I'm a little worn-out, and my shoes pinch dreadfully,' Bess confessed, rather warm but unwilling to betray the dilapidated state of her fan. 'Would you please make my excuses to Mr Hines? I need to go and fix my hair -- no,' -- as Amy made to rise -- 'you needn't come with me, no point unsettling yourself now you're comfortable. I shan't be long, I promise,' and Bess dropped a kiss on the maternal cheek, every bit as cosy and confiding as if she were a child of six again.

'Bless that child!' exclaimed Jo once she had gone. 'I had feared that Europe would turn her head, but as elegant as she is she doesn't have any affectation at all.'

'I don't mind telling you we've had our worries, since beauty and tenderheartedness can be a dangerous combination. I think her father lived in terror of her becoming infatuated with some penniless artist or charming Frenchman. But she's such a good girl, and so devoted to her work, that as long as she keeps well I am perfectly content,' said Amy proudly.

In the powder room, Bess splashed cold water over her wrists -- a curious trick meant to revive her spirits -- and picked her way through the throng of gossiping girls towards the library, where the quiet might allow her to collect her scattered thoughts. She stopped on the stairs to inspect her feet, and winced at the sight of blood where the back seam of her slippers had rubbed the skin away. She sat down with the shoes in one hand, nursing the worst afflicted foot with the other, and was still working up the courage to put the things back on when a voice at the end of the hall startled her.

'There you are, Princess. Are you hurt?'

Forgetting propriety in his anxiety for her, Dan sprinted to her side, landing on the step beside her with such easy familiarity that all her agitation vanished, and she laughed.

'Only that these silly slippers pinch, and I never should have worn them since they're brand new and haven't been broken in. I knew it was a bad idea, but they are so pretty...' Bess sighed, glancing with a mixture of loathing and admiration at the offending objects.

'I noticed you'd gone, and were looking tired, so I followed to see if you were all right,' said Dan in his blunt way, so different from the fawning manner to which she'd become accustomed that she placed her hand on his, and said reproachfully:

'Why didn't you ask me to dance, Dan? You let me fill up my card with ridiculous boys who haven't the first notion how to waltz...'

'Don't dance, never do, never knew how,' began Dan, but Bess broke in:

'I know you can dance perfectly well, for it was part of the curriculum at old Plum, and don't you remember how we all used to jig to Nat's fiddle almost every time we had a holiday?' Bess smiled at the recollection, for childhood intensifies all joys and pains and, notwithstanding the charms of the Old World, some of the happiest times of her life had been spent within these walls.

'It's not quite the same,' said Dan gruffly. 'We were children then, and those weren't fine balls full of strangers, and nobody thought anything of a rough fellow like me dancing with...'

Dan stopped, then, his love for the girl preventing him from sweeping away her innocent supposition that all was as it once had been, and showing her how their relationship might appear to the wary eyes of her elders. If Bess had laughed or looked puzzled by the idea, I think it would have broken his heart; but she merely coloured a little, and when she replied it was in the low, thoughtful tone that so often deceived people into thinking her older than her years:

'I forget, sometimes, that you don't much care for company, and are most comfortable with your oldest and dearest friends. I do this kind of thing all the time, so am used to it, and was never given the opportunity to indulge in shyness. Forgive me?'

And Bess looked up at him with such sweet anxiety that Dan could not resist the impulse to lower his head to the gloved hand and kiss it passionately, like a knight home from war paying homage to his lady.

As he slowly looked back up at her, dreading that he had betrayed too much, the concern was quite gone from her face, eclipsed by something between surprise and joy. She stroked his unruly black hair tentatively, tenderly, and although she did not speak her breath came quick and fast, and the bright blue eyes said more than any words could.

'I never meant for you to know -- never!' burst out Dan, clinging to the dear hand as if it were the one thing that might keep him afloat in a world which suddenly seemed to surge and swirl uncontrollably around him. 'But even though nothing can ever come of it, I'm glad -- so glad -- you do.'

'Why, Dan, how could I help loving you, so kind and brave and good and handsome as you are?' said Bess simply, clasping her free hand over his. She did not blush to own her affection, thinking it nothing to be ashamed of, and perhaps not fully acquainted with her own heart until she found the words on her lips.

Dan started away as if she had struck him, and sprang to his feet, muttering 'No... you don't mean that... you don't know me...'

Bess placed a steadying hand upon his arm. 'Perhaps not fully, any more than you know me... we haven't seen each other for a long time, I know, but we did grow up together. I know you well enough to love you, and that's enough, isn't it?'

How sweet it sounded, so much sweeter than in dreams, to hear her say those words! Poor Dan never would entirely master his impetuous side, and could only answer her with a kiss... a long, hungry kiss, with the desperation of the starved in it.

It was Bess who broke away first, whispering, 'I must go now, or they will wonder what's become of me. But you'll talk to papa?'

Dan groaned, all too late perceiving that two hearts must now be broken rather than merely his own, and despising himself for his selfishness. 'Come see me tomorrow' was all he could say, as he reluctantly helped his breathless Cinderella back into her dancing shoes. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, presented him with the rose that had tumbled from her corsage and ran down the corridor, back into the bright ballroom full of strangers. He buried his nose in the fragrant white flower and inhaled deeply, before tucking it safely inside his jacket and making his way slowly up the stairs. Bess was to be hurt, and it grieved him sorely. He was angry with himself, disappointed that he had betrayed Mother Bhaer's trust, afraid of what he would have to tell Bess, his Bess...

_His Bess_. She loved him. She loved him, and she knew he loved her. As unhappy as he was, his heart was bursting with joy.

Bess, though still a little flushed, seemed in much better spirits after her respite and attacked the polka with gusto, heedless of the blisters on her feet. She looked around in vain for Dan, and when she could not see him contented herself with reliving the glorious moments just passed. Bess had been so admired and petted all her life, and had enough awkward young men try to woo her, that she was not much astonished by anyone professing to be in love with her... but the vehemence of his kisses had startled her, even frightened her a little. They were so unlike anything she had experienced before that she did not quite know how to think of them, yet she could not think of anything else. In idle moments, her fingers strayed to her lips, recalling the sensation of his mouth against hers... it did not seem quite real, but rather some strange, glorious dream.


	2. Snowdrops

The next morning, as the cleanup was still going on, Bess went silently searching for Dan. She was too sensible a girl not to realise the obstacles which stood in their way, but, having lain awake most of the night, she had resolved most of them to her own satisfaction. She scurried around like a nervous mouse, terrified lest she run into Ted or Aunt Jo; who, it seemed to her, would divine instantly what she was about, or else fatally distract her from finding Dan alone.

She found him, eventually, in the garden, attempting to dig the ground over, though it was frozen almost solid and patches of snow lay on the grass round about.

'Dan! What in the world are you doing? It's freezing out here.' Bess shivered and wrapped her coat tightly around her.

'I can't keep still when my mind's troubled -- I must try and work it off somehow,' said Dan, striking the ground with such force that the spade fairly rebounded off it. 'These snowdrops need planting -- the frost will have killed off all the bugs in the soil by now, so they'll be ready by spring...'

'I don't want to talk about snowdrops, Dan,' said Bess, gently but firmly.

'Very well, then.' Dan drove the spade into the soil and straightened up. 'I'll tell you how sorry I am about what happened, and how you're to put it out of your mind and try to forget that anything of that sort was ever said and... and done between us. Forgive me, Princess, do, and let's shake on it like old friends.' He put out his soil-stained hand, and Bess could not help but notice how, for all its strength and for all the brusqueness of his words, it trembled.

'I'd rather chat about bulbs than listen to you talk such nonsense, for you must know I can't do any such thing. I'm not a flirt, and I would never have kissed you if I didn't mean it with every inch of my soul.'

Dan let his hand fall and silently picked up the spade again, it being the only thing preventing him from taking her in his arms.

'And whatever you may say now, I don't believe you meant to trifle with me either. You're not that kind of man.' She placed her hand on his arm and felt it stiffen in response. 'You meant it too,' she said, almost pleadingly. 'I know you did, I felt you did, and the last time we said goodbye, I felt it...'

Dan looked at her in mute despair, before shrugging her hand away and resuming his task.

Bess bit her lip and threw her gaze up to the lowering sky, as if it might bring help, even if only in the form of rain or snow. Underneath the calm demeanour inherited from her mother beat a romantic heart not unlike her father's, and Bess's voyage through life had been such smooth sailing until now that this first storm threatened to capsize her entirely. She was too docile in nature to be spoiled, but still, everything she had ever wanted had been hers; and overwhelmed by new and strange passions she quite forgot prudence and propriety, and merely poured out the first thing that came into her head.

'I was too young to understand it at the time, but I thought about it a good deal, and I thought about you, and then once I was out in society I understood a little better, and I realised that none of the other men I met could... hold my attention in the same way. I mean, I didn't find myself thinking about them when they weren't there, and I didn't seem to be so happy when I thought I should see them again. I don't know anyone else like you, Dan. I can't even imagine there being anyone else like you.' Bess took a deep breath, unused to such outpourings. 'So it doesn't matter that you have no money or family, regardless of what the world might think. You know us all better than to think we care about such things.'

'Bess,' said Dan wearily, crouching down to the ground, 'could you pass me the trowel from that basket behind you?'

Bess retrieved the unromantic implement and handed it to him quietly, watching as he stubbed it into the freshly excavated earth.

'And one of those small bulbs in the paper bag there.'

Bess took off her gloves so as not to spoil them, and did as she was bid, kneeling down beside him to hand over the bulb, like a papery, miniature onion. Their fingers brushed as he took it from her, and he flinched as if her touch burned him, while she felt an odd shiver independent of the cold.

They carried on working in silence until the whole row was planted, and Dan said, half to himself:

'See how calming it is, just to be doing something useful, and not upsetting ourselves by talking about things which can't be changed.'

Bess only nodded, and Dan said, more tenderly:

'What a brute I am, keeping you out in this chill! You should have gone inside and left me to it. Here, your hands are frozen,' and Dan took the small white hands between his palms, trying to rub some warmth back into them, while Bess bent her solemn blue eyes upon him and said:

'I may be rich, but I've never been idle, and I'm not afraid of hard work. I don't need to be pampered, or to have fine things -- I only want to love someone who loves me, and to help and serve him all my days.'

'You don't realise...' Dan began, and sighed. 'After all your family have done for me, I would be the worst wretch alive to repay them by stealing their most precious jewel and burying her in the dust. The West is no place for a lady -- it's hard, and rough, and dangerous, and you no more belong there than I would in your world of balls and concerts and galleries, my Princess.'

'I'm not a princess, or a jewel, or a goddess, or a marble statue to be set on a pedestal and worshipped!' cried Bess from the depths of her frustrated heart. 'I'm only a girl. I know it won't be easy, and I'm young and ignorant; but I love you, and I'll learn.'

Dan looked into her bewildered face and dimly understood for the first time his error in projecting the image of a golden-haired fairytale spirit on to his childhood playmate. She was not, after all, Aslauga, unreachable and invulnerable as the stars beyond his prison cell; she was Bess, a flesh and blood girl not yet twenty, who shivered when planting snowdrops and got blisters when her shoes were too tight. 

For a moment, he saw them planting vegetables on a homestead, like this; just living and working for each other, letting the rest of the world go hang. But the icy brush of a snowflake on his cheek brought him back to the present and reminded him that the past could never be erased, however much he might wish it.

'I can't deny I love you. I always have. I always will. And that's exactly why we can't be together. I won't take you with me to be half-starved and threatened and perhaps killed, and there's an end of it.'

Bess's grip on his hand tightened. 'Is it really that bad, Dan?'

'I can look after myself. Don't worry about me. But there's a lot of fellows I wouldn't want within a hundred miles of you. You say you're not afraid of hard work, but you don't know how hard the work can be, when nothing grows because the settlers took all the fertile land, and ride their horses over your crops just for the fun of it… ' He shuddered. 'You have no idea of the outrage there would be if I brought a well-bred young lady to live among the Indians, though heaven knows you'd be safer with them than the settlers. But that's where my life is, and I can't give it up, so please don't ask me.'

'I never would,' said Bess simply, for the thought of asking him to stay at Plumfield forever had not lingered more than a few moments in her mind. He was Dan. He belonged to the wilderness. To root him in domesticity, to take away his freedom to wander, would be robbing him of his soul. It would be like telling her that she could never sculpt again.

The lovers remained kneeling on the ground for some minutes, hands clasped together as if in prayer, both of their hearts filled with such a strange tumult of joy and despair that speech seemed both inadequate and unnecessary.

At last the snow roused them, and Dan helped her to her feet, doing up the buttons on her gloves with the same gentle reverence with which she had often seen him handle a particularly fine moth, or Daisy's pet rabbit. She had always loved that about him, she thought, but it had never moved her quite as it did now. As they approached the house, she could not help but whisper 'I'd still go anywhere with you, and you needn't fear for me; I'd rather live a day as a lion than a thousand years as a useless little lamb.'

It was a saying rather artfully calculated to chime with Dan's thoughts, and she followed it by standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek goodbye before turning and scurrying in the direction of home. Dan looked sadly after her, heedless of the cold, while the air thickened into tissued flurries, obscuring her from his sight.


End file.
